Insidious (14 page)

Chris spotted a person in gear sitting at one of the tables at the far side of the room. He thought of a fat black bug waiting to be served food in a classy restaurant. The suit had blue accents like his. That made the bug an entry-level participant like himself.

“Hi,” Chris said through his link. “What’s going on in here?”

The suit shifted slightly. Chris interpreted it as a shrug from the person inside.

“Catching up on some work. The quarters are nice, but I thought I’d find someplace else, you know, change of scenery.”

A change of scenery usually meant setting up a new VR scenario. But at Synchronicity, it meant going for a walk, seeking out somewhere that matched the reputation of the station as a luxury playhouse.

“Sorry, I’ll leave you to it,” Chris said. He started to walk out, but then he turned back toward the other blue. “My link says this is a dining room. But we all eat in our quarters.”

“Well, I think the link map hasn’t been updated, is all,” the blue said.

“Ah, so it used to be a dining room, before the … ah … before the exercise?”

“Exercise? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was before the exercise.”

Chris frowned under his mask. The person sounded disingenuous. Was he acting this way because he knew nothing, or because he knew more than Chris did?

Another blue came into the room. The mask moved to one side and then the other, taking in the stacks of boxes. Then he spotted the ceiling and staggered a couple of steps while staring upward. He ran into a table, which brought his head back down. The newcomer spotted the other two and stomped over to join them.

“Hrm. Looks like it’s been awhile since this was a dining room,” he said.

Chris nodded. “Seems so. Hey, is Captain playing someone today?”

“Oh yeah. Doesn’t he always?”

“Yes. Why is he called Captain, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” said the first blue.

“Me neither. I wish it would leave,” said the other.

“So, he won again last night?” asked Chris.

“Of course he did. When doesn’t he?” the first blue said.

At last. Something I can get some traction on.

Chris leaned forward and lowered his tone, even though he spoke over the link as required by station rules.

“I say we take Captain down a notch. If we can’t do it alone, maybe we could do it together.”

“What do you mean?”

Chris smiled under his mask. He could tell by the urgency of the response that he had the hook in.

“I was reading about challenge three. You think Captain’s going to win, right? Even though we’re all playing?”

“Well, yeah, he’s better at it than we are. You know, faster than humans, I mean.”

Chris noted the blue had said “faster,” not “smarter.” Chris himself wasn’t sure which it was, or if there was a difference when it came to brainpower. But the way the blue said it meant he wasn’t prepared to accept being dumber than Captain is, or if he did, he resented it.

Resentment and jealousy.
Chris could work with that.

“I noticed something. The rules state that we’re all enemies. It isn’t a team game. But we could slant it and play cooperatively. All of us against Captain. All we have to do is pull a few shots against one another. We could also agree on quadrants, make sure we don’t run into each other too soon.”

“Are you crazy?”

“What are you afraid of? You gonna lose out on your chance at a yellow rating?” Chris laced his voice with just enough sarcasm to make the comment count without offending his potential ally.

“The three of us couldn’t make that big of an impact on the game,” the first blue said. Chris knew he had him.

“Spread the word,” he said. “If we all keep taking right turns, maybe we’ll patrol in circles and less of us will run into one another. Then Captain will have to hunt more of us down individually.”

“Okay, I will.”

The other one nodded.

“Okay then. Well, I’ll see you around.”

Chris took a deep breath and walked out in a different direction. His heart charged away and he sweated inside the suit. How was that for making bold moves? Was he toying with expulsion from Synchronicity or worse? Chris shook his head. Vineaux liked risk takers. The leaders would be impressed by such a move—they’d have to notice it. They
had
to be watching.

Chris followed the curve of the base. He still felt locked on his mission to find the secret behind Synchronicity. He found a blank area in the directory that had been marked off limits and decided to go check it out in person.

He discovered a security checkpoint at the border of the protected zone. A pair of control turrets protruded from the wall on either side. Chris knew from seeing such turrets in action on Earth that they could apply one or two different nonlethal attacks to repel or trap unauthorized people. A green suit tromped out past the turrets as Chris arrived. Chris waited for the person to walk by in the corridor.

“What’s in there?” Chris asked.

“Where?”

Chris held up the ponderous arm of his suit, indicating the checkpoint. “The restricted area.”

The person turned and scrutinized the door.

“I … I don’t know.”

“Not allowed to talk about it?”

“I don’t remember,” the person said.

“You could just say you’re not allowed to talk about it,” Chris said bitterly. “I saw you walk out of it, so of course you know.”

“I did? I mean, I wasn’t paying attention,” the person said. He glanced back at the checkpoint. “Look, I have to go now.”

Chris watched the green trudge away. What was that about? The person had sounded sincerely confused. He walked up to the checkpoint.

“Please turn back. This is a restricted area,” a voice informed him via his link.

Chris looked at the turrets. Would they stun or glue him if he walked past? He felt too much doubt to walk boldly past them. The subversion he’d started felt safer than a direct, open violation of the rules at a checkpoint.

From up ahead, two yellows appeared to be walking in line. They didn’t pay any attention to Chris as they marched toward the checkpoint.

I’m just a lowly blue to them
, he thought as they tromped past him.

An impulse seized Chris and turned him around. He fell into place behind the two yellows. The two strode up to the checkpoint and the leader paused, most likely giving some kind of authorization with his link. Then they resumed, Chris in tow.

“Is the blue in your party?” said the turret voice through Chris’s link.

Shit.

The yellows turned around. They stared at him with their flat eye-plated helmets for what seemed like eternity. Then the leader shrugged.

“Yes. He’s with us.”

Chris couldn’t believe it. It seemed that maybe the second yellow didn’t believe it either, because he turned to catch a glance at the leader. Then both yellows turned around and resumed their course. Chris followed. His heartbeat drummed in his chest. He’d taken a risk and it had paid off! Chris felt the thrill of progress on a long-intractable problem.

They entered a lab densely packed with equipment. His link received a list of services from the machines. Many of the services were described in highly technical jargon that he didn’t recognize. He couldn’t process it all at once. The yellows didn’t waver, keeping on their course. They reached the far door and left the lab without looking back.

It struck Chris that they may have purposefully avoided looking back at him. Or were they just too bored with this place to look around?

Chris stopped and downloaded some test results. Testing of what, he had no idea. He drowned in unfamiliar terminology. And he didn’t care too much; after all, they were bound to be doing a bunch of experiments out here away from the UNSF. Who knows what kind of stuff VG had dreamed up?
Why did that yellow let me in here? Maybe it’s part of the game.

He spotted another door in the corner. He almost walked straight through it, but a warning came through his link.

“Warning. Now entering maintenance dock. All personnel working in the dock should don vacuum suits.”

Chris saw red labels displayed on the wall around the door, and he knew this would be only one of half a dozen safety procedures. The computer would never open a dock to space with an unprotected human inside it. He waived the safety check and manually actuated the door. He saw a wide empty floor beyond and stepped through into the dock.

“Damn.”

The open vault shocked Chris. At least fifty meters of open air sprawled in each direction, more room than he’d seen since leaving Earth. Chris’s eyes immediately found a gray shape the size of a small house dominating the center. It reminded him of the engine of a bullet train. The sleek form had perhaps a dozen breaks dotted across its top surface. Banks of bright lights on long swivel arms glared down on several spots of the device.

Some kind of secret project
, Chris thought. Suddenly, he doubted his theory about a challenge. Would he get in big trouble for seeing this? Chris turned his head in every direction, trying to get a full view of the bay from within his helmet. He felt like someone must be there who would discover him, but he didn’t see anyone.

He searched for camera bubbles on the walls and ceiling but didn’t spot any. If they existed, they had been miniaturized or camouflaged. He thought that sometimes they wanted you to see the cameras and sometimes they didn’t. But he knew his link would log his movements throughout the station. Anyone who wanted to check up on him could find out he’d been here. His presence might have already flagged a security robot.

Chris overcame the irrational urge to break away and run from the room. He stepped up to the smooth construct with tentative footsteps.

What the hell is it? It could be anything. A deep space fighter craft? The outside has to be a hull. This thing operates in the vacuum of space.
Am I overestimating this? It could be a simple exploration drone. But aren’t those much smaller unless they are destined for the deepest reaches of the solar system?

Chris walked back toward the door and paused to access the services through his link again. He downloaded several files he found here and there, trying to hoard information for later. His link cache could hold a huge amount of information, but he concentrated on finding summaries and results rather than grabbing loads of data that wouldn’t mean anything to him.

Then Chris crept to a massive metal door at the other side of the bay. He gave in to the instinct to move quietly and quickly. Beyond the door, he saw another security checkpoint, guarding the way out of the protected zone. He held his breath and walked past the turrets. The voice didn’t say anything. He knew that if they reviewed any security records that he’d be caught, but he still felt a primal urge to escape.

Chris found an atrium and sat down to contemplate what he’d found. Whatever it was, it had to be important to warrant a large empty section on a station millions of miles from Earth. He felt dread at what he’d done, going into the area, treating it like a game, but what if it wasn’t? Would they fire him and undo all his years at VG?

When he returned to his quarters, Cinmei greeted him immediately.

“Welcome back,” she smiled. He half-smiled back inside his helmet, but his reaction to her was poisoned by his knowledge that it couldn’t be sincere.

“Thanks,” he said. Cinmei helped him remove his helmet and the plastic cuirass.

“Would you like massage? The gear is heavy.”

“Ah, uhm, sure.”

Cinmei pointed to one side of the room. She walked ahead of him and touched an invisible panel. A white massage cot slid out from the mirrored wall.

She has to use a touch control because she doesn’t have a link. Could I live like that? No. Surely, it would just be better to die, unless there was some hope of getting a link eventually.

Chris pulled off the rest of his gear and left it where it fell. He collapsed onto the white surface and immediately Cinmei’s hands began working on his back.

“How it go today?” she asked after a minute.

“Not good at first. But some good things came up later,” he said. “Some weird things.”

“What is weird? I mean … what things?” she said, flustered with her poor English.

“I found a strange place today. A place I wasn’t supposed to find. Or … maybe a place I
was
supposed to find, I’m not sure.”

“What place?”

“I don’t really know. It’s a big hangar with some kind of spacecraft, or missile or something. You haven’t heard anything?”

“No.”

“You may have been there and forgotten. I noticed that some of the people coming out of there had forgotten what they’d seen. Or pretended to anyway.”

“How is that?”

“I don’t know. Could be some gas or something. A security measure, maybe.”

Cinmei remained silent.